


On Winter

by Serenity_Ribbon



Category: The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin, Winter's King - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, mention of past character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21962836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenity_Ribbon/pseuds/Serenity_Ribbon
Summary: Argaven had returned to eir old habits of walking the city streets at night in Rer, when it was yet a burned out, blackened husk of a city, half shrouded in darkness.Argaven XVII returns to Ehrenrang.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	On Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, venndaai!

When Emran’s wizened, still body flashes behind eir eyes yet again like the echo of a fire that’s been stared at for far too long, Argaven sighs and heaves eirself out of bed, feeling every single one of the ninety years e should be, in linear time. E wraps eirself in eir grey cloak, a fur overtop and heads out. It is bitterly cold, the sun’s rays yet hours away from warming the streets. A good, proper winter temperature, made for layers and fires and bundling one’s scarf against one’s face.

Argaven had returned to eir old habits of walking the city streets at night in Rer, when it was yet a burned out, blackened husk of a city, half shrouded in darkness. It had been easier there than in Estre. In Rer they are as relieved as any other at hearing of the downfall of Emran, but a Harge king does not overawe them. One king is much the same as the next in that ancient city. E had walked through the streets there, refamiliarizing eirself with sights e had never seen more than a glimpse of in eir twenty-four years on Winter, to the babble of people speaking eir language without accent or hesitation. E was no longer used to being among the tallest in the room, or at a decent, reasonable temperature. E had taken a moment, at the start, to react when people had called eir ‘Argaven’ first and only, with a tone of reverence in it.

The archways and underpasses are still the same, if one can ignore the scorch marks and the places where ancient stone has been cracked, chipped or clean knocked away by the fighting. The marks look incongruous against the stone. Argaven presses eir hand into one, almost to check if it’s real. Eir mitten presses into the dent, and comes away covered in stone dust.

E had known that the Ehrenrang e returned to would be different from the one e left when e had departed Ollul, but not like this. Not this ruin of a city, halfway forced into the same shape and space as Mishnory when Emran had all but sold it to the Orgota. Rer had been hard enough, the few short years it had been eir capital, and Estre, the months e had been there before that, and e had not lived in either of those places for the majority of eir life.

Argaven ends up at the Old Bridge, still standing after all the things it has witnessed, all the Thaws it has withstood, as Remny Tower strikes Eighth Hour. The Old Bridge has always been a good place for thinking, even as the city begins to come back alive around em. E folds eir arms over the bridge’s edge and looks downriver, towards the Port as the sounds of merchants making their first deliveries and early risers walking along well-trodden paths rises around em. Even in eir ruined wreck of a city, life goes on. In time they will rebuild and regrow, and in time Argaven will finally bring them truly into the Ekumen.

E stands, takes another lingering look at the port and slowly makes eir way back home, towards that city within a city, as the sun rises above em.


End file.
